Interesting facts from the history of coffee. Photo

Coffee is served in expensive restaurants and affordable eateries, drinking from delicate China cups and a convenient single cups. Millions of earthlings start with him its day. Passionate coffee lover was Voltaire, and Paganini, Theodore Roosevelt and Sophia Loren. No, it would seem that nothing more familiar than this refreshing drink, but the history of his March across the planet is full of amazing episodes, exciting and fun.

It’s a delight for the foodie or glutton for the punishment?

At the turn of XVI–XVII centuries, which had recently met in Italy, was nearly banned by the Vatican. The priests called coffee ungodly potion, the devil’s brew. Some of them believed that the lovers of this drink should be interested in the Inquisition. But one of the advisers of Pope Clement VIII convinced him before you pass judgment, try coffee. And dad found it quite appropriate for Christians.

Pope Clement VIII.

True, what he said to his cardinals, not known for certain. According to one version, Clement VIII, was excited from the taste and aroma of coffee. On the other — decided that such a bitter liquid does not tempt any glutton, and, on the contrary, may even serve as a means of exhaustion of the flesh.

Ladies and gentlemen: duel on printing presses

In Britain the first coffee house opened in 1652 and 1675-mu, there were already about three thousand. A cozy place, rapidly came into fashion, become a place of recreation and interest clubs for educated Londoners and residents of other major cities. Here we are discussing the latest gossip, talked about science and literature, was entered into the commercial transaction.

The English coffee shop. Engraving of the XVII century.

The ladies in the coffee shop are not allowed, did not like that their husbands go missing there in the long evenings. In 1674, in one of the capital’s publishing houses were printed “the women’s Petition against coffee”, quickly dispersed around London. Emotionally it was argued that coffee turns men into eunuchs, “is as barren as the desert, where, as they say, grow these berries.” Men responded “a Response to the petition of women”, where he tried to defend a “harmless and healthful beverage” sent “the all-merciful Creator” for cheerfulness and fun.

It is possible that the petition and the response to it really was the works of some prankster or group of pranksters — perhaps even of the frequenters of coffee shops. But the funny dialogue was the last straw of his Majesty Charles II, and considered the coffee shop a hotbed of dissent. In 1675 he published “Proclamation banning coffee houses”. However, the ban was in force for slightly over two weeks — under pressure from outraged Londoners the king lost, and the institution was reopened.

In Vienna, the Austrian capital, and in the Ukrainian city of Lviv are the monument to Yuri Franz Kulchytsky — Orthodox nobleman, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Austrian diplomat and translator. The man was long considered to be instilled in the Viennese love coffee. On both sites the dashing Cossack depicted with a sleek coffee maker. Vienna the sculpture is located on the street named after Kulchytsky, at the corner of the house, where once was located the legendary coffee shop.

A monument to Yuri Franz Kulchytsky in Vienna.

In 1683, Kulchitsky, saved Vienna besieged by Turkish troops. He volunteered to deliver friendly monarchs messages asking for help when the townspeople were exhausted from hunger and disease, and the Austrian authorities were willing to surrender the capital. He spoke fluent Turkish, and several other languages. And so he, along with his servant managed to pass through the position of the enemy, not to arouse suspicion. The scouts came dressed in clothes like Turks usually wore, and cheerfully singing Turkish songs.

The cavalry arrived in time. After the decisive battle of Vienna he was rewarded with a mansion, an impressive amount of money, tax exemptions, and noted among the trophies three hundred bags of coffee beans. All this allowed him to open a coffee shop in Vienna “house under the blue flask”. Visitors Kulchitsky served himself. At first they were few and enterprising merchant advertised his establishment in Turkish robes walking around the streets with a tray and treating passers-by coffee spilled in jugs. Over time, Kulchytsky was elected head of the Moscow Department retailers coffee.

Kulchitsky in the coffee shop “house under the blue flask”. Figure beginning of XX century.

He is credited with the authorship of the recipes croissants and the famous “Viennese coffee”: that it was he guessed it to flavor a bitter drink with milk and honey or sugar. Some modern historians believe that the first coffee house in Vienna opened not Kulchitsky, and I doubt whether he was engaged in this trade at all. But even if all this and legend, it is so beautiful that to abandon it would be a pity.

A great contribution to the spread of coffee in the New world introduced in 1720-ies the young French sailor, captain Gabriel de Clie. Want to grow coffee trees in a private estate on the island of Martinique, he produced several seedlings in the Paris Botanical garden.

The route across the Atlantic ocean was difficult. The ship on which de Cle carried in a glass case a tiny coffee tree, first almost became a victim of the pirates, then caught in a storm. Depleted stocks of drinking water, and almost all of his daily ration Gabrielle gave the plant. In addition, precious cargo had to vigilantly guard against going after him envious, what de Cle lamented in his memoirs.

Gabriel de Clie and coffee tree.

However, the tree made it safely to Martinique. In 1726, a sailor-gardener gathered the first harvest. Later, he founded coffee plantations in Jamaica and Cuba, the Islands of Haiti, Puerto Rico and Trinidad, thus providing a good income for themselves and their native France.

As coffee became the national drink of the USA

December 16, 1773 in Boston Harbor a few dozen white inhabitants of the British colonies dressed up as Indians, snuck onto three ships of the East India company, and dumped in the water more than three hundred boxes of tea. This incident, known in history as the Boston tea party, was a response to the oppression of the colonists by the Empire.

The Boston tea party. A postcard of the nineteenth century.

Three years remained before the United States finally declare their independence from Britain, but the Boston tea party was an important step in the development of the identity of the nascent nation. And tea the Americans could drink with no hands — not only for political and economic reasons, but because this drink represented the tradition of British America. A worthy substitute for tea was coffee, which moved the colonists almost without exception. In 1774 the first Continental Congress coffee was declared the national drink of the United States.

Comparable in scale “coffee boom” the United States has experienced almost two centuries later, in the 1920-ies, when it was introduced prohibition. Good Americans instead of alcoholic cocktails, guests were treated to coffee, while the “dishonest” sipping whiskey, bought from bootleggers.